Literature Review on “End to end latency for Delay-Sensitive Applications”

Ishita Akhter
Student ID: 503121
Degree: MPhil-leading-to PhD (Research)
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
University of Melbourne

Abstract
Latency or Round-trip-time (RTT) delay has always been an essential and critical performance metric
for data communication technology. Presently, latency is considered as an influential factor in delay-
sensitive applications, involving data communication technology. However, latency resolutions saw
little or insignificant improvements, compared to other operational factors within communication
network. In this report, we review and evaluate established findings on investigating end-to-end
network latency, in order to relate its significance with delay-sensitive applications.

1. Introduction

Latency, generally conceived as time delay, is one of the most fundamental, yet overseen trait that
restricts the full potential of a high-speed communication network. According to Delaney et al. [1],
network latency is the time of exchanging an application protocol data unit (APDU), commonly
referred as a data packet, within a network. This time is consumed while circulating the packet from
the application layer of a sender node to the application layer of a destination node. This notion is
based on latency definitions stated in [2], [3], [4], [5], [6] and [7]. The researchers in [8] [9]
contemplates that the data packet from a source node is propagated to the destination through a
chain of intermediate nodes or hops within communication network. During this process, the packet
experiences several sources of delays at each node along the end-to-end path. These delays are of
two categories—(i) the fixed component that involves transmission delay and propagation delay and
(ii) the variable component that comprises of processing and queuing delays. Therefore, the total end-
to-end delay is specifically the sum of the delays encountered at each hop between the source and
the destination. This total latency can be expressed with the following equation—

dtotal = dprocessing + dqueing + dtransmission + dpropagation……………………………(i)

where
dprocessing = Processing delay,
dqueing = Queuing delay,
dtransmission = Transmission delay,
dpropagation = Propagation delay.

Kurose et. al. [9] explain that transmission delay is the amount of time needed for transmitting a
packet from the queue towards the starting point of a physical link. Transmission delays can be
microseconds (μs) to milliseconds (ms) in practice and varies from being negligible to significant.
Then, the time needed for data bit stream to transmit from the start of the communication link to reach
the destination router is the propagation delay. In wide-area networks, propagation delays are
approximately in ms and can be negligible sometimes as well. However, it can sometime contribute
significantly into network latency in each node. Processing delays are created within networks as
gateways, firewalls, or other network elements such as switches and routers work on a newly arrived
packet. This delay is rather small among all end-to-end delay contributors. Queuing delay occurs
when a packet waits in a queue before being transmitted onto the physical link, and it typically ranges
from μs to ms. For an empty queue with no existing packets waiting to be transmitted, queuing delay
will be zero. On the contrary, for a larger queue with several packets waiting, this delay will be much
higher. Queuing delay is variable and unpredictable but it is indeed the most important as well as
complicated since it is dependent on data packet characteristics.
Presently, latency effects are significantly visible in interactive, time-sensitive applications with
network delays similar to the interaction time or speed [10]. According to Goel et al. [11], these
applications are driven by real-world demands and depend exclusively on timing constraints for
proper functioning. Such time/delay-sensitive applications require periodic execution with low jitter
(variation of latency) or quick and delay-less responses to external requests. Examples of such time-
sensitive applications include—
 Client-server business applications
 IP-based voice (VoIP) applications
 IP-based Real-time Video [12]
 Multiplayer interactive internet applications [13]
 Telemedicine, teleoperation [14].

Real-time interaction in such application demands for latency values to stay within 40 and 300
milliseconds (ms) [13]. Also, according to [15], both-way round-trip latency of 100 ms is needed to
maintain unconscious etiquette of human auditory interaction, whereas both [16] and [13] suggest that
atleast one-way delay should be around 100 ms. However, as per the findings of Rumble [17], most
network performance metrics e.g. bandwidth, capacity, hardware speed, memory size etc. have
improved radically, in the last few decades, in comparison to the latency in network communications.
This can be attributed to the fact that since high latency is closely related with design issues,
designers usually trade it off for achieving efficiency for other network performance metrics. Hence, it
is certainly evident that further in-depth and extensive research initiatives should be organized to
reduce latency specifically for time-sensitive applications involving real-time data communications.

In this literature review report, we discuss on recent research directives involving end-to-end network
latency. The initiative is to discuss on the contributions of each of the research works in a critical
manner, in order to state the present scenario of end-to-end latency research.

2. Recent related works

In recent years, several research initiatives concerning end-to-end latency have been proposed
through extensive investigations. An evident example is found in [18], which discussed about

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developing a method to compute the bandwidth requirement for maintaining a specific end-to-end
delay time through any path in the network. This method showed that satisfying a 3 ms end-to-end
delay for Sprint IP network would need only a 15% additional bandwidth. The researchers here
accumulated data traffic measurements from the sprint network using Gaussian process model to
characterize the data flow between the nodes in the network, in order to realize the any path end-to-
end delays for these nodes.

Then Gámez et. al. [19] addressed a model that incorporates six different methods for the estimation
of the RTT delay in a wireless WiFi network, based on already observed characteristics. This paper
infact is much closely related to our research scope, as it deals with latency for delay-sensitive
application. Three of the algorithm techniques in this paper are based on statistical techniques such
as—Mean Value Estimation Algorithm, Median Value Estimation Algorithm, Max Value Estimation
Algorithm, one based on the Markov Chain algorithm, fifth approach based on the Exponential
Averaging technique, and the final method uses the Kalman Filter algorithm. These final two
techniques infact offer the best results comparatively. The paper applies Integrated Absolute Error
(IAE) and the Integrated Square Error (ISE) calculations for appraising the performances of these six
algorithmic techniques.

Another work closely related to our research, is proposed by Xu et. al. [20], as it also involved end-to-
end latency measurements specifically concerning time-sensitive applications. This paper introduces
a proper low-latency block-coding model and four latency estimation algorithms in wireless network, in
order to minimize high latency due to large size blocks in packet coding for delay-sensitive
applications. The estimation technique is applied through four estimation algorithms, namely three
classic estimation algorithms—Mean value estimation algorithm, Median value estimation algorithm
and Max value estimation algorithm, along with the novel Kalman Filter algorithm, which infact
provides the best estimation, compared to the first three. All these methods are tested using the
integral absolute error (IAE) and the integral square error (ISE), in order to check the resemblance
between the estimated and the current measurement values. This enabled the researchers to
determine the proper estimation method that allows selection of a proper coding block size with less
processing delay, much suitable for time-sensitive applications.

Larsen et. al. [21] predict that application level end-to-end one way latency for a 10GbE connection
can be around 10.2 μs for a single request in a standard Linux network stack. Researchers in this
paper proceeded to realize different sections of end-to-end latency under realistic scenarios, such as
application, network stack, driver software and hardware. This paper also suggests application of
hardware-based solutions as well as implementation of specialized methods such as Infiniband and
Myrinet, in order to minimize Ethernet latency further.

Kim et. al. in [22] developed a pattern-based prediction method to estimate overall network latency
and also improved prediction accuracy upto 5.4% over the best single prediction model, using both
experimental and real-life latency scenarios. According to this study, the proposed pattern-based
method offers 86.2% prediction accuracy for latency measurement, when compared to numerical
models such as the Network Weather Service (NWS) and the Network Status Predictor (NSP). The
study also suggested that this method could be much effective for scheduling network-based

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application resources. Interestingly, this method relied on one type of 64-byte probing packet, instead
of using different varieties of probing packets with different probing rates, and proposes to use them in
future works.

Sundaresan et. al. [23] focused on end-to-end latency measurements to a nearby wide-area host,
last-mile latency, and latency-under load to the last-mile router using SamKnows & BISMark gateway
deployments. This project measured the latency and throughput of network access links through
longitudinal estimates for 8 Internet Service Providers (ISP) using 4000 gateway devices and a
combined 4200 communication devices. The paper also observed end-to-end latency influences on
access network performance over an extended time duration. Though this paper discussed last mile
latency, it did not elaborate on user-end home network influences such as wireless network effects on
either end-to-end or last mile latency.

Interestingly, [24] looks at a slight different approach, which is the oscillating behaviour of end-to-end
network latency, based on past observations with fixed-sized data packets. This approach
incorporates four different network traffic of data packets, namely—stable_strong (SS), stable_weak
(SW), stable_transient (ST) and stable_biased (SB), by observing their stability and the burstiness,
involving round-trip-time series. This method, however, is yet to employ latency measurement using
data sets of different sizes and components and uses a somewhat similar approach as explored in
[22].
Additionally, [25] describes the designing process of optimal multi-hop microwave networks with
information-theoretic approach to decrease end-to-end transmission delay. This method, based on
error exponents in multihop networks that characterize coding delay, establishes an appropriate
optimization policy between decode-and-forward (DF) and amplify-and-forward (AF) relay methods.
This method however, does not take the effects of certain transmission feedbacks aimed at specific
nodes into consideration, while measuring end-to-end network latency.

From this discussion above, it is established that these aforementioned papers mostly deal with
different methods of estimating, modelling or minimizing end-to-end latency. Since our aim is to
investigate on end-to-end latency and minimize its effects particularly for delay sensitive applications,
these papers certainly provide possible ideas on applying their findings within the scopes of our
research.

5. Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be stated that the report provides a summarized picture of related significant
research initiatives regarding end-to-end network latency. This discussion therefore, can certainly act
as a basis on our exploration of investigating end-to-end latency effects and discovering possible
solution(s) to help improve efficiency of real-time-based delay sensitive applications.

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